


Fear of Heaven

by BarbaraKaterina



Series: Good Omens-ey Explorations [1]
Category: Christian Bible (Old Testament), Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Everyone is horrified, M/M, Sodom and Gomorrah, also it¨s more Bible than Good Omens tbh, and what followed, explored, good omens are the excuse to write bible fanfic I've always needed, one of the ugliest bits of the bible, this is not a nice story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-11 22:53:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20161450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarbaraKaterina/pseuds/BarbaraKaterina
Summary: Crawly gets left alone in Ur for too long, and so he goes to see what Azirapahle is doing.He rather regrets that decision not too long after. Sodom is another place he probably could get a commendation on, but he doesn't particularly want to.





	Fear of Heaven

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Letter from “Crawly” to Azirapil](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19730593) by [mostlydeadlanguages](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostlydeadlanguages/pseuds/mostlydeadlanguages). 

> So writing theological explorations thinly veiled as a Good Omens fanfic is apparently my new thing. I never cease to surprise myself. It looks like it won't be the last one, too, so I made it into a series.
> 
> This work was initially inspired by the amazing mostlydeadlanguages' Akkadian masterpiece (not that I can judge the Akkadian), but took a very different turn for which she certainly cannot be blamed in any way.
> 
> TW for attempted rape and triggering language surrounding it, including explicit rape threats. Sodom is not a nice scene, folks.

Crawly was bored, that was the problem.

Eanasir was an amusing enough companion, really, but he had to admit that he’d gotten _used_ to living in the same city with Aziraphale. They didn't even see each other that often, really, but it was more the knowledge that he could drop in any time he wanted. 

Had he been in Ur too long? He thought dreamily of Heliopolis, but there was actually a reason he was supposed to stick to the Mesopotamia and around, and Egypt would probably be stretching it a bit. Dropping in from time to time was fine, but no moving bases.

He wondered, not for the first time, what was Aziraphale actually doing with Abraham and why it was so crucial that he went to see him just now. The poor sod had spent the first decades of his life in Ur. Couldn’t Azirapahle have given him whatever message needed conveying then? But no, it was first ‘you have to leave Ur’ - Aziraphale had been all mopey about that, too, he’d gotten friendly with the bloke – and then, _years_ later, Aziraphale had to go and find him and bring him some other crucial message.

But then, given that apparently Gabriel was running things Upstairs now, it really shouldn’t be surprising it was all a bit of a disorganized mess.

Crawly listlessly walked around his house. This was intolerable – he’d even learned to _write_ \- a human invention he’d been rather sceptical about, to be truthful – just to contact Aziraphale and make him come back quicker, but _no_. In Canaan the angel persisted, for who knew how long.

Suddenly, it occurred to Crawly he could go pick Aziraphale up in person. After all, he was officially supposed to be thwarting the Heavenly work, wasn’t he? He might not _actually_ give two figs about what Hell expected of him, but it was a plausible excuse and he _was_ curious.

It would require a bit of subterfuge, naturally – if he just showed up like that, Aziraphale would no doubt assume he was actually there to thwart his holy mission and would take issue with that – but that shouldn’t exactly pose a problem. Crawly would just drop in, see if Aziraphale was busy, and if not, drag him back to Ur for some decent food, which the angel must have been missing desperately by now.

This decided, Crawly took care of a last few temptations of Eanasir that would keep the locals in Ur occupied until he came back, and then he wished himself over to Canaan.

He found Aziraphale with Abraham as he had expected – but what he had not expected was to find him, a), with two other angels, and b), in the middle of a scene where a woman was laughing hysterically, while a man angrily shouted at said angels.

Abraham – and boy the man got _old_ since Crawly had last seen him in Ur, though he was also rather less dirty – was focusing most of his attention on one of those unknown angels, saying: “Sarah,” oh right, that was who was laughing, “is my friend, and I am not forcing her to sleep with me!”

“Nobody said you had to!” The angel protested, sounding a little desperate, as Sarah continued to sound like she was about to choke.

Abraham pointed a threatening finger at him. “You,” he said, “said I would have a son with her.”

“Well, yes…” The angel began carefully.

“Isn’t that usually implied?” Abraham asked in a menacing manner Crawly could not have previously believed such a sentence could even contain.

“Usually, but I am an angel!” The poor creature protested.

Abraham considered that, and seemed a little mollified. “You couldn’t have led with that?” He asked with a scowl.

“Abraham, do be fair,” Aziraphale chided, interjecting. “You didn’t let the poor dear speak before you started with your outrage.”

Abraham conceded that was, perhaps, true, and Sarah next to him – who Crawly was pretty sure was his wife, and wasn’t that interesting? - got her laughter under control enough to ask: “Perhaps?”

“Well, forgive me if I didn’t find the idea they were going to force us to...that...as amusing as you,” Abraham muttered.

“That,” Sarah repeated after him, looking like she was in danger of another bout of hysterical laughing, but then grew a bit more serious as she added: “And I didn’t, I swear. I wasn’t laughing about that. It was just...your face, and your complete immediate outrage, when it couldn’t be clearer that that was the last thing Betiel would ever want to tell you to do.”

“He might not want to, but he might still get his orders,” Abraham muttered grimly. That man had caught up to the realities of Upstairs and how it worked fast, it seemed. 

Sarah, however, only shook her head in incredulity, and looked at the angel whose name was apparently Betiel. “You have my sincere condolences,” she said, getting up and retreating to her tent.

When she was gone, Abraham turned to the angel and said: “But really, I am sorry, my dear. I should have waited for you to explain. It’s just that the thought...upset me.”

The angel patted his hand, and Aziraphale cleared his throat. “We have other things to do today, Betiel,” he reminded his colleague.

“Yeah, about that,” Betiel muttered. “Shouldn’t we tell him?”

Aziraphale looked indecisive, while the third angel seemed scandalised. “Tell me what?” Abraham asked.

“I mean, we want him to trust us and all,” Betiel continued, ignoring him, “and you want to keep it a secret? He’ll find out, and then he’ll blame us for not telling him ahead of time.”

The third angel rolled her eyes. “You’re mainly worried he’ll be angry with you.”

“Well...yes,” Betiel agreed. “You know we’re...close.” At Abraham’s look, he amended: “Together! You know we’re together. So please?”

“Oh very well,” Aziraphale said, and turned to Abraham. “We’re going to Sodom. Heaven is very upset with them – there have been _rumours_ \- and we have been sent to investigate.”

The first signs of horror appeared on Abraham’s face. “And if the rumours are confirmed?” He asked carefully.

Betiel looked away, and even Aziraphale hesitated.

“God will smite the city in righteous anger,” the third angel declared, giving his companions a disgusted look.

Now Abraham was fully alarmed. “What, all of it?” He asked, unknowingly echoing Crawly’s question from before the Flood. It was strange how vindicated that made the demon feel. If even God’s chosen…

Oh well.

Betiel was still avoiding his eyes. “I’m afraid so,” Aziraphale confirmed, very visibly uncomfortable. “You have to understand...the rumours are truly terrible. Rape and violence everywhere, it is...very upsetting.”

“Lot is there,” Abraham said quietly. “And I know him, Lot would never – look, if there are rapes and violence then there must be victims as well, surely you wouldn’t kill victims with the abusers? Surely that isn’t just?”

Now even the third angel seemed to have trouble looking at him, and after a long, uncomfortable silence, Aziraphale declared with false brightness: “I’m sorry, dear boy, but we really must be going.”

Abraham stared at him, uncomprehending, and then turned his eyes to Betiel, accusation sitting there clear as a day. “You’re going to just leave?” He asked.

Betiel squirmed. “I...that is...I mean...” He turned to Aziraphale, his eyes desperate. “Could I maybe, possibly, stay? I mean, I’m sure the two of you can handle it in Sodom, and I’d really much rather...I mean, Abraham seems like he needs comfort...heavenly comfort I mean, an uplifting of the soul, er-”

“Oh, of course!” Aziraphale said, sounding relieved and freeing Betiel from the increasingly incriminating rambling, even as the third angel rolled his eyes. “You just stay here and, well, keep an eye on Abraham. We’ll be on our way! And say goodbye to Sarah for us!”

And then Aziraphale turned and departed with some speed, given the impression he desperately wanted to be anywhere but there.

Crawly decided to wait for a bit. The third angel was still there, so it wasn’t like he could keep Aziraphale company on the way, and he trusted his ability to catch up. He was curious what was going to happen with Abraham.

So far, the man stood and watched the departing angels with Betiel at his side. “And Sarah thought I was being absurd when I talked about you receiving orders,” he said then, quietly.

Betiel closed his eyes. “I don’t- what do you want me to do? I stayed here, I won’t take part in it, what more-?”

Abraham shook his head, slowly, in a defeated manner. “Nothing,” he said, walking away.

Crawly was just about to leave too, disappointed and not truly understanding why, when Abraham stopped. He didn’t turn around, but he said, his voice tinged with desperate determination: “What if the majority of the city’s like-like Aziraphale said, but there’s a whole bunch of people there who are fine? Not just a few victims, but...say, fifty? Will they still get slaughtered ?”

Crowley was about to give up his disguise just to assure him that yes, they would, what did he think happened during the Flood, he’d thought the man _understood_when Betiel spoke, his voice sounding perhaps even more desperate: “I...well. If there were fifty righteous people, it wouldn’t be a rotten city, would it? There’d just...be a lot of rotten people. We could...that could go into a report to Heaven. Not a rotten city at all, oh no. Yes, I think...I’m sure that if there are fifty people there who are fine, we can save the city.” His determination seemed to grow with each word, and Crawly could only stare in utter amazement. “Yes, I can promise you that,” Betiel finished, firmly. 

Abraham turned, and there was hope blossoming in his eyes, clear even at a distance.

“I’ll let Azirapahle know right away,” Betiel declared.

“Wait!” Abraham stopped him. “What if...what if there’s five righteous people missing to these fifty? Does everyone still get killed?”

There was a brief flash of despair in Betiel’s eyes again, but he said: “No, I’m sure forty-five is still...that still could, that’s still not an entirely rotten city.”

Abraham nodded. “And...” he asked then, tentatively.

Crawly could see the remainder of the conversation develop before him. There was no need to wait and witness it. The only question was at which number Betiel would fold, where his fear of Heaven would make him stop Abraham, tell him it was impossible, that there was no way to swing that and convince his superiors.

And Crawly suddenly found he did not want an answer to that, he did not want to see the look in either of their eyes.

Instead, he followed Aziraphale, reasoning that if a city was terrible enough to specifically deserve the wrath of Upstairs, he should check it out anyway. Perhaps he could pretend it had been his work?

He caught Aziraphale and the other angel just as they reached the gates of Sodom. There was a bunch of blokes hanging out there, as people tended to do in these parts, it being one of the few relatively cool places to be found, being made of stone and all that. Plus, you got all the news first.

Most of the people present gave the arriving angels interested looks, but one jumped up the moment it became obvious they were headed inside the city, and came to meet them halfway. “You’re for Sodom, then?” He asked with cheer that seemed just a bit forced.

“Yes, indeed,” Aziraphale confirmed, clearly trying not to make it too obvious that it was a bit of an idiotic question, given where they all stood.

“No chance you’d change your mind, I suppose? It’s, ah,” the man looked over his shoulder nervously and lowered his voice. “It’s not a very nice city.”

“I’m sure it’s perfectly fine,” Aziraphale said, exchanging a look with his other colleague. “You live here, don’t you?”

“Oh, that’s very kind of you, sir, I am sure, but...I’ve only recently moved in, and I’m not, er, very popular. Don’t quite...get on with the locals.”

“Still, I’m sure they’re not all bad.”

The man gave him a rather dubious look. “Well, if you won’t change your mind,” he said then, “I simply must invite you to stay at my house.”

Aziraphale blinked, clearly very taken aback. “No, my dear man, er-I’m afraid I haven’t caught your name?”

“Oh, so sorry! I’m Lot, son of Haran. From Ur, originally.”

The angels both seemed surprised by this information. Crawly was too, to be honest. What were the chances? 

Aziraphale gathered himself, and continued: “My dear Lot, your offer is very kind, but we can spend the night right in this square, it’s really no bother, the weather is fine for it-”

“Oh no,” Lot said very quickly, and with an urgency that really seemed unnatural, “no, I absolutely must insist, my home is your home and all that. This square is...not suited to such things. Truly. I will be happy to welcome you. It will be my pleasure. You are not from here either, are you? You speak as if you spent some time in Ur. I am sure you have some news about my place of birth. _Please_, good sirs, I beg you- come with me.”

Faced with this onslaught, Aziraphale was helpless, and so he agreed and let Lot drag them away. Crawly watched the whole thing, hidden and frowning. This all smelled extremely fishy. He’d better keep watch.

-

The men of Sodom began to gather around sunset.

Crawly had noticed some of the blokes from the gates going around other houses, and then different men leaving _those_ houses, and all in all it had seemed like some big news were being spread over the city.

Now they were all coming out, and they were converging on Lot’s house – the house where Aziraphale stayed.

Crawly did not like this one bit.

The one who was at the front of the crowd – big, good-looking bloke Crawly remembered from the gate – pounded on Lot’s front door, shouting: “Hey, Urite! Where are the pretty men who came in today, hm? Don’t keep them all to yourself, we want to have some fun too!”

And just like that, Crawly’s bad feeling was a thousand times worse.

There was no response from the inside, and so the man pounded the door again. “Son of a whore, do you want us to break the door down?” He asked, and a roar of the crowd behind him indicated they were more than willing to do so. “Bring them out here!”

The door opened a sliver, and Lot’s pale, terrified face looked out for a moment before he slipped out and shut the door behind him. “My brothers...” he began.

The big bloke punched him in the face. “We’re not your fucking brothers, you Urite piece of shit.”

Lot, who fell down to his knees with the blow, gave the men around him a desperate look. “Choose something else – anything – I promise those men safety, I can’t...”

“Anything else?” An older man from the crowd mocked. “What could immigrant filth like you possibly have to offer? You don’t have shit, Urite.”

“I...I...I have daughters!” Lot said in desperation, and Crawly could only stare. “Virgin daughters, I’ll bring them out here, just leave those men alone!”

“Oh, fuck you,” one of the other men said. “No one cares about your ugly-ass daughters, why do you think they’re still virgins? Get out of our way or we’ll make your ass bleed before we come for your pretty guests. Either way, you can’t stop us.”

And just then, as the men began to push towards the door, Crawly glimpsed Aziraphale’s face in the window.

It was just possible that he panicked a little.

In the next moment, all of the gathered population of Sodom was blind, and, panicked, began to attack one another. In the ensuing confusion, the door to Lot’s house opened and the man was pulled inside.

Crawly slithered closer in the shadows, eager to make sure no one got in, and listened as Aziraphale did his best to calm Lot just as the other angel was rhapsodising about the wrath of Heaven that was about to come to the city. 

“I think,” Aziraphale said when Lot was a little calmer and stopped apologizing, “you should go and get your soon to be sons-in-law.” Lot made a horrified noise, and Aziraphale quickly reassured him: “I’ll go with you and protect you, you do not have to fear – no, they will not attack me, Lot, the power of Heaven is with me, I am safe -”

In response to that, Lot muttered something like ‘I used to think that, too, and look where I am’, and there was a short silence before Aziraphale resumed, sounding less confident. “Your daughters want to marry them, don’t they? We should get them out of the city, because Yadiel is right, it will be destroyed, and you wouldn’t want them to be caught up in it, would you? Come on, Lot, we have to hurry...”

After some more convincing, they left the house together, and Crawly silently followed them through the streets to make sure Aziraphale didn’t miss something and he really was safe.

He’d never thought he could agree with Heaven’s decision to smite something, but with this city, he was very close to smiting himself.

He was relieved to see the sons-in-law, at least, hadn’t been part of the rapist crowd, but they were nevertheless well-off citizens of Sodom who were hesitant to believe rumour of holy smiting when all of their fortune was tied to the city.

“But don’t you want to leave this terrible place?” Aziraphale asked them finally, in despair. “The people here...what they tried to do...”

“I’m sure it wasn’t so bad,” one of them replied uncomfortably. “Perhaps you misunderstood?”

“They punched Lot in the face!” Aziraphale declared in a scandalized tone, as if that had been the worst that had happened.

“Well, our father-in-law to be can be a bit...contentious,” the other young man said apologetically.

Aziraphale frowned. “Shame on you! he’s standing right here!”

“He knows what we think,” the man replied defiantly. “We’ve discussed this many times. He needs to stop sticking his head out.”

Aziraphale’s scowl deepened, and he turned on his heel and marched away.

“They were the best I could find in Sodom,” Lot explained in a hurried whisper. “I tried to do my best for my daughters.”

Crawly grimly wondered how much ‘the best’ had to do with the men’s wealth.

“Well, I think you’re better off without them,” Aziraphale declared resolutely. “But you and your wife and daughters have to leave as soon as possible, pack only what is necessary-”

Lot gave a resigned sigh. “I don't know.”

“What?” Aziraphale whisper-shouted at him. “Surely you do not wish to die?”

“No, but...if God smote cities for wickedness, why hasn’t he destroyed Sodom a long time ago? I’ve been living here for years, and ti’s always been a terrible place. Why should he do it now of all times?”

“Well, now G-, er, Heaven sent Yadiel and me to see for ourselves, and we confirmed it, and Yadiel will no doubt send a report – probably has done so already – so really, you don’t have much time-”

Lot only gave Aziraphale a pitying look, and shook his head.

Crawly only saw them safely to Lot’s house. He had to trust Aziraphale wouldn’t get into any trouble inside, because unlike Lot, he knew perfectly well he didn’t have much time, and, as with the Flood, however wicked the city was, there were always the children.

The children could nto be evil if they tried – not willingly, consciously evil – and Crawly had stood by and done nothing once already.

Never again.

He went from house to house – and what he witness there was repulsive, words meant to hurt as deeply as possibly, more beatings and rapes and murders, and truly, Hell itself seemed like a pleasant place in comparison to Sodom – and he pulled the children out of their beds – often children with bruises or burns all over their bodies, and oh, he wanted the people of this city to _burn_ \- and took them out, to safety, over the mountains where they would be far away form the holy fire that would descend soon.

The morning star just appeared in the sky – always an opportunity for bitterness with Crawly – and he was just taking out the last children when he noticed Aziraphale and Yadiel literally dragging Lot, his wife and his two daughters out.

Well, at least they took the girls too, he thought bitterly as he hurried away with the children.

He waited in safety too, knowing that holy fire would be no more pleasant for him than for the humans. Once it was over, he went to look at the destruction out of a strange sense of obligation. He could tell it had been carried out by Yadiel immediately - the angel had got carried away and Sodom wasn't the only city that paid the price, and in spite of everything, that'd have never happened to Aziraphale.

He should probably be horrified, but the rumours _were_ the same about Gomorrah, from what he'd heard in Sodom, and he had no capacity left to feel much of anything after that night.

He simply took one long look at the destroyed plain and went to find Aziraphale.

He discovered him mournfully sitting by a tree on a mountain slope.

“Where did you leave them?” Crawly asked, settling down next to him.

Aziraphale startled, before pointing to a cave a short way behind him. “Was that your work?” He asked then, predictably.

“Destroying the city? No, I’m pretty sure you know whose work that was, angel.”

“You know perfectly well what I mean, Crawly.”

He did, though he would have appreciated if Aziraphale stopped asking. “No. You know I don’t work like this. There’d have been no finesse, no craftsmanship, no nothing. This was humans and humans alone. After all, if ti was me, do you really think Heaven would be punishing them?”

Aziraphale stayed silent, which was a fair point, really. Who knew with Gabriel.

“That was...” the angel started after a moment, but trailed off, apparently not finding words.

“Yeah,” Crawly agreed, because what else was there to say, really?

Well, except for the one thing he’d been busting to say the whole night, and which slipped out now: “What the fuck were you thinking, declaring Lot the only righteous one of the lot? Did you miss the part where he _offered up his daughters for rape_?”

“He was desperate-” Aziraphale began weakly.

“Angel...” Crawly said warningly.

“No, you’re right. It was...it was terrible. I was horrified. We were two grown men, as far as he know, but his girls- it was for them that I led them all out, you know. They really seemed like sweet young ladies, and they wouldn’t have left without their father.”

It was just then, as if on cue, that they heard the unmistakable pitch of two teenage girls whispering. “Look, you know the rules,” one of them was saying. “Every man has to have sons, and he can’t marry outsiders. What options do we have exactly?”

“Father was about to marry us to two Sodomites, he didn’t seem to care too much about the marrying outsiders rule,” the other voice pointed out.

“Father was also about to offer us up to a violent mob,” the first voice returned, and Aziraphale and Crawly exchanged horrified looks. They’d both hoped, at least, that the girls hadn’t heard.

“So forgive me if I don’t give a fig about what he wants or doesn’t want. But we’ve just seen what God does to people who piss him off. I’m not risking that, all right? He doesn’t seem very discerning, so I’m not betting my life on the chance that he’ll just smite Father and leave us alone. The law says you have to have a son of your line, so we’ll give Father sons of his line, End of story.”

Crawly, who had a better imagination for terrible things that Aziraphale, began to suspect. He didn’t thinl anything could still surprise him on this particular day, but apparently he’d been wrong.

“But what if he wakes up?” The other girl worried.

“We just have to get him really drunk,” the apparently elder one said confidently.

“But...I’v heard that sometimes when they’re very drunk, they don’t get hard.”

At this point, it was impossible even for Aziraphale to pretend he didn’t know what was going on, and he put both hands over his mouth to stifle his gasp.

The older girl groaned. “We’ll just have to try until we get the right balance,” she decided.

The angel and the demon exchanged a look.

When the night came, and the girls served their father wine, it was Crawly who put him in deep sleep while it was Aziraphale who confused the girls’ mind to make them believe they’d done what they’d determined to, and who made them both pregnant the same way Sarah was promised: without any need to actually sleep with the father of the children.

Afterwards, they sat back at the tree on the mountain, leaning on it and staring into the distance, drinking the rest of the wine the girl had got for Lot.

“That place was poison,” Aziraphale said after a while, in a determined tone of voice.

“Sodom, you mean?” Crawly wanted to make sure.

“Yes. It was insidious, it got inside their minds...It must have. They were such nice girls...”

“It wasn’t Sodom that made them decide to do this, angel,” Crawly reminded him, trying to be gentle. “You heard them, it was the wrath of Heaven.”

Aziraphale took a long gulp from the bottle by way of an acknowledgement.

“Still,” he said then. “That it even occurred to them…”

“That might well have been the influence of Sodom,” Crawly conceded. “What are you going to do about it, smite every evil place in this way? Saving only one randomly selected guy?”

“I told you, it was for the girls.”

“Are you happy about that choice now, then?”

“You know they didn’t mean anything by that. They meant well.”

“Angel, they decided to rape their father. You sure there weren’t better choices, if you were going to only save four? Where’s the wife, anyway?”

Aziraphale took another gulp.

“It was for Abraham a bit, too,” he admitted then. “He was so worried about Lot...”

“You think no one else in Sodom had people worried about them outside?” Crawly asked. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you didn’t answer me about the wife.”

“She looked back,” Aziraphale said succinctly, and it was Crawly’s turn to take a gulp.

“It was a fucked up place,” he conceded. “If a place ever deserved a smiting, it was this one.”

He did not say: but it was me who had to save the children, while you were preoccupied with four random adults, none of whom deserved your attention all that much.

It was too early for Aziraphale to know such things about him just yet.

In fact, it took several millennia until he did tell him, one night in their cottage as they were remembering the past, and he spent the rest of the night comforting a sobbing angel wracked with guilt.

Because Abraham was right: angels could always get orders.

And much like the daughters of Lot, they had seen what happened to those who disobeyed them.

**Author's Note:**

> I swear this started out funny...you know, Abraham negotiating with God, that scene is hilarious, right? I don’t know where it went wrong.
> 
> As for Abraham and Sarah being married while not sleeping together, Abraham repeatedly (ok, twice) introduces Sarah as his sister to someone, only for that someone to then marry her and get into all kinds of trouble for it from God. So that was one of the things that led me to imagine that a) he’d marry her for protection from people who wanted to marry her by force but that at the same time b) he wasn’t actually invested in the marriage very much, or at least not in any kind of exclusivity or staking a claim on her.
> 
> The other thing that led me to this idea was Genesis 18:19, where God/one of the angels says about Abraham, in many English translations, ‘I have chosen him’, but in a lot of others ‘I have known him/I know him’, which, of course, we all know what that means in the Biblical sense. The Hebrew verb used in that passage, YD’, is, indeed, the same “know” as is used, for example, in the sentence “and Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain”. In the most popular Czech translation, Genesis 18:19 is rendered as “I grew intimately acquainted with him”, which I think carries the double meaning very well.
> 
> Anyway, angels and God are used kind of interchangeably in this passage in Genesis, because the angels were seen as being direct mouths of God, but that is obviously hardly the case in Good Omens, so I’ve chosen to see this “knowing” as referring to one of the angels in particular. So, in other words, Abraham and Sarah were in a queerplatonic relationship, and Abraham was dating and sleeping with Betiel.
> 
> (I should have totally written by theological thesis on this, at least I’d have the excommunication over and done with.)
> 
> Also, on an unrelated topic, I don’t like the super black and white takes “Sodom was ok and destroying it was evil”. What’s described as happening in Sodom is repulsive, and not for the reason conservatives think. It’s just that Heaven was apparently incapable of targeted reaction.
> 
> I considered another chapter with the sacrifice of Isaac, but honestly, Aziraphale and Crowley wouldn’t be there, the angel would obviously be Betiel, so...


End file.
